Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party is official

GATINEAU — On the day he formally registered his new People’s Party of Canada (PPC) with Elections Canada, Maxime Bernier was making a connection between his political startup and Quebec’s new government.

Both parties want to control the flow of immigrants into the province, he said, as he underlined the fact that it’s possible for new parties, such as his and the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), to eventually come to power.

The MP for Beauce was at the Elections Canada office in Gatineau, Que., on Wednesday to personally hand in the paperwork required to officially launch his new party. He was accompanied by a staffer.

“The CAQ advocates for fewer immigrants, and I do the same,” Bernier said in response to a question from iPolitics.

This past August, the former Tory MP called multiculturalism and the federal immigration policy a threat to the “cultural character and social fabric” of the country.

Just a few weeks later, on Oct. 1, the CAQ capped a successful election campaign, based partly on promises to limit the number of immigrants entering the province to 40,000 per year — about 10,000 fewer than the number who enter now — and to make newcomers undergo a test of the French language and values.

Bernier’s party would encourage more economic immigrants, he said. “(The PPC is) the only federal party that wants fewer immigrants, and fewer immigrants coming for family reunification,” he said.

The PPC would cap the number of immigrants accepted into the country at 250,000 a year. That’s about 50,000 fewer that the federal government accepts today.

Bernier said he’s OK with the term “populist” to describe his new party, as long as it is an “intelligent populism.”

“What I am saying is, there are people coming here who don’t share Canadian values. They are not welcome here.”

So far, no Conservative MP has indicated he or she would join the People’s Party, but Bernier said he doesn’t expect it to happen anytime soon, because “they don’t share (his) vision.”

After all, he said, “the Conservative party and the Liberal party are just about the same.”

So far, Bernier said, the PPC has managed to raise $350,000. His goal is to reach $3.5 million in donations in time for the October 2019 federal election.

Bernier added that 22,477 people have joined the PPC, and PPC associations have been created in 43 ridings. He hopes to have associations in all 338 federal ridings by December.